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LeMans Blog: Where the rubber meets the road

June 13, 2012

Drivers at LeMans are preparing to use Michelin's new hybrid tire. The tires were formally introduced to the media on Wednesday. Photo by Rick Dole

When the clock struck 12 on Wednesday night, ending the first day of practice for the 80th running of Le Mans, the Toyota TS030 hybrid didn't turn back into a pumpkin, but it probably ended any hopes of a Cinderella story for the Japanese team stealing headlines and the pole position in France this year.

German ace and defending Le Mans champion Andre Lotterer jumped into his Audi R18 E-tron quattro carriage and set the best time of the day, 3:25.453, nearly two seconds quicker than any of the Toyotas.

Wednesday was another cloudy, cool overcast day. Thursday is looking to be the same and with a greater chance of rain. If the rain does come this evening, chances are quite strong that both Audi and Toyota will run on the Michelin Racing hybrid tire. Michelin formally introduced it to the media on Wednesday evening, but it actually debuted at the Spa round of the World Endurance Championship in May.

The tire is an intermediate. Like all intermediate tires, it is designed to run in damp conditions where the track is not wet enough for “full wets” and is not dry enough for slick tires. Traditional intermediate tires have small grooves or blocks cut into the rubber to help channel the water. When the track becomes dry, the old style intermediates loose their performance quickly as heat build-up starts taking thick blocks of rubber off the tire.

The geniuses at Michelin designed a slick intermediate tire. No grooves. The beauty of the tire is it works great in damp conditions, and once the track dries, the performance of the tire does not fall off, as it is slick. Brilliant.

Michelin has claimed overall victory at Le Mans for the past 14 consecutive years. For the 2012 running of the race, Michelin will supply rubber to 32 of the 56 entrants. They brought 18 tractor-trailers to France, containing 5,500 tires. However this is 28 percent fewer tires brought to Le Mans than a decade ago, as the 2012 racing tire covers 50 percent more distance than a tire did 15 years ago. The tires are housed in a tent that is 8,600 square feet (800 meters square), and the mounting facility is also that large. Fifty people mount and balance the tires. A Michelin racing tire has 150 different components; 250 tons of carbon material was saved due to recycling of endurance tires in 2011.

The Michelin DeltaWing tires are attracting most of the attention at Le Mans. The tires on the front of the car are four inches wide and can easily handle the 190-mph top speeds and fast corners at Le Mans. The DeltaWing team bolted the same set of tires on the car for Wednesday's practice that were used during the Le Mans Test Day two weeks prior. Those tires had four stints already on them.

Ben Bowlby, the designer of the DeltaWing, said, “Michelin became the first major technical partner for DeltaWing and gave us credibility and outstanding technical support at a critical time. Michelin has a million miles of experience at Le Mans, but no one has any experience with a car that did not exist. They took on a tremendous technical challenge and exceeded our expectation.”